Wild Land News no 57, Spring 2003

Wind Farms - The Renewables Revolution Article

Fiona Anderson examines how we protect our wild heritage while meeting demand for cleaner energy generation.

Most readers of Wild Land News will have read in the press of the 100 or so wind farms proposed or committed in Scotland, which confirms their awareness of the increasingly visible number of wind turbines springing up in the parts of rural Scotland they visit.

Members of SWLG attending Scottish Environment LINK's seminar on Renewable Energy (RE) in November learned that there are currently 35 approved windfarms in Scotland and over 200 applications pending in the approvals pipeline, with a number of companies in competition to offer attractive terms for suitable sites to farmers and estate owners. This is due to the targets announced by the Scottish Executive last August to double the UK target for renewable energy (RE) in Scotland as a proportion of electricity consumption from 10% to 20% by 2010 and from 20% to 40% by 2020. (In 2002 it was 13% of which 12% came from hydro-electricity.) The 40% target includes some export of power to England.

Most of this boom in RE will come from wind power, which as yet is the most economic technology, apart from run-of-the-river hydro schemes These do not need dams and reservoirs but their output is relatively small and limited in location. Wind farm location is "footloose" but can be much more damaging to wild land values. The other forms of RE, detailed more fully in the next article of Wild land News, have other limitations. Offshore wind power, for example, involves greater construction costs than onshore and needs shallow water, while wave power schemes are only at the pilot stage.

Pressure to exploit Scotland's capacity

Scotland has the greatest potential for RE of any country in Europe, having 25% of the wind resource, and it is even considered to have the best climate in the EU for solar heating of buildings as it can make better use of the sun for longer in the day and the year, while the Pentland Firth is the Saudi Arabia of the wave industry. It is evident that Scotland has the potential to be a leader in meeting energy needs from the resources around us, while contributing to UK climate change commitments in the Kyoto Treaty -the driver behind the Government's RE policies - and providing much needed cash and some employment in the Highlands and the Borders. But at what cost to wild land?

It is interesting to read in the professional planning press for 31 January that Wales has been casting the green eye at Scotland. The National Assembly in Cardiff has recently voted to double the UK target for RE by 2010, which "does not mean , as claimed, covering every hill in Wales with turbines." The Assembly intends to meet the target through equal amounts from onshore, offshore and other renewable sources. The Countryside Commission for Wales has defined optimum locations for wind farms, out of sight of any national park, remote from housing and not affecting important nature and wildlife sites.

SNH has a much bigger job to do in Scotland, which it has started with publication on the web in July 2002 of Strategic Locational Guidance for Onshore Wind Farms. Given the need to "address climate change" (which means the national energy policy to limit use of hydro-carbon fuels), SNH supports RE, subject to giving higher priority to energy efficiency and demand reduction, and supporting development with care for the natural heritage. This involves accepting that some landscape change will occur, but that wild land values should be safeguarded, there should be benefits for local communities, and existing infrastructure should be used where possible.

SNH's strategic approach is to steer wind farms to areas most suited for them by using a sieve map approach based on maps of natural heritage areas, landscape and recreation interests, including "search areas for Wild Land" in the map of non designated areas. The search areas were first published in SNH's report Wildness in Scotland's Countryside for the Year of the Mountain conference in November.

Relative levels of constraint and opportunity for wind farm construction result in 3 zones of the lowest, medium and high sensitivity to development. SNH recommend to local authorities that the best approach is to have landscape capacity studies, criteria-based development plan policies and a locational strategy like theirs working in combination. SNH's work is a welcome start to an energy strategy for Scotland, but much more remains to be done by other Scottish Executive Departments and agencies to consider all feasible ways in which Scotland can meet its responsibilities in relation to climate change.

Impact on tourism

There have been quite strong differences of view between agencies in Scotland as well as Wales about the effects that wind farms can have on visitors' reactions, as tourism is important to the economy of both countries. There have been campaigns against wind farms in North Wales and the Cambrian Mountains.

A research study commissioned by the Scottish Executive in 2000 found that concerns of local residents reduce considerably once a development is in place. This finding is similar to a Mori poll published in November last year of visitors to Argyll commissioned by the British Wind Energy Association which found that 9 out of 10 tourists say the presence of wind farms makes no difference to whether or not they would return to an area. But a survey by VisitScotland found that more than three quarters of visitors to areas where wind farms have been built or proposed say they chose to holiday in Scotland specifically for its scenery, and 28% would be put off by the presence of wind farms. Scottish Environment LINK recommends knocking their heads together - the Executive should carry out a perception study and VisitScotland should consider climate change etc.

Need for UK energy strategy

There has been a surprising lack of emphasis to date about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not only through RE, but also through cutting personal consumption and greater efficiency of domestic and industrial systems, particularly transport. Fragmentation of government responsibilities is partly to blame. Less than 20% of the energy we use is electricity, but the targets only apply to electricity. Significantly the February 2002 UK Energy Review by the Cabinet Office's Performance and Innovation Unit recommended bringing together responsibility for energy policy, climate change and transport policy under one government department. It also indicated real potential for the UK to move to a low carbon energy system through a combination of energy efficiency, RE and combined heat and power. An Energy White Paper for England & Wales, published at the end of February, adopts the same target for 2010 as Scotland, and aims to achieve a 60% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. RE is devolved to Scotland but the rest of national energy policy remains with the Department of Trade and Industry.

In January we heard that Whitehall is getting its energy act together but the emphasis is still on RE, with the launch of a £10m scheme in England & Wales to help home owners, schools, and communities to install their own RE systems, which may be wind turbines, hydro, energy crops or solar. A photovoltaics (solar electricity) demonstration programme also under way should eventually cover some 3000 homes and 140 non-domestic buildings. Such schemes are a drop in the ocean of course. The trick will be to get enough subsidized units in place to start to bring prices down. Active promotion is required with the public, business and industry.

A LINK Working Group has found that electricity generation accounts for 40% of greenhouse gas emissions; 20% comes from agricultural activity and the rest is due to burning of hydro-carbon fuels for transport and heating. A start has been made with recycling targets, the Climate Change levy and Government attempts to curb car use, but it is very difficult politically for any government to try to change personal behaviour. Energy is too cheap to encourage mass take up of RE at present.

But regardless of the outcome of the Iraq crisis, world oil production is expected to start to decline in the next decade while demand continues to rise, so fossil fuel saving would be urgent even without the greenhouse gas/ climate change issue. Pumped storage hydro schemes (one feasible option for future RE) the size of Loch Lomond or Loch Maree date from the 1950s and 60s.

What are we prepared to accept today as a consequence of climate change? Nuclear energy is a "green" option in Whitehall. The Energy White Paper has not ruled out the possibility that some nuclear capacity may be necessary in the longer term if RE does not meet its targets. Is replacement of Hunterston and Torness power stations after 2011 by further nuclear ones producing waste which will remain lethal for thousands of years preferable to carefully sited wind farms on the Scottish hills?